Strength leveling
This article provides information about effective ways to train Attack, Strength, Defence, and Hitpoints through melee combat. This guide is organised into sections based on skill levels. For example, if the section header is Levels 20 to 30, you should begin training at the area with an Attack and Strength level of at least 20. Defence is also preferred to be at that level, but is not always required. The solution to lower Defence is to bring more food, or use food that heals more. General training notes *The Waterfall Quest will give you both 30 Attack and Strength if completed at level 3 combat. *Strength can be trained without training hitpoints with barbarian fishing. *Defence can be trained by using Ancient Magicks on longrange or Chinchompas on Long fuse against Maniacal monkeys for more experience per hour than using melee. *Once completed, the Recipe For Disaster quest gives access to the Culinaromancer's gloves, which significantly boost offensive accuracy. *Players can complete Slayer tasks to train Slayer while simultaneously training combat stats. This also allows players to use the very powerful Slayer helmet, which significantly boosts melee damage and accuracy, to more efficiently fight monsters and gain experience faster. This combined with slayer giving access to many high-profit monsters and bosses means that most high-level players seeking to make profit or max their account should train slayer instead of fighting the monsters on this list, which will mostly be high-experience but low-profit monsters. *When fighting dangerous monsters it is suggested to bring a teleportation tablet or if your magic level is high enough, teleportation runes in order to quickly escape. Note that a tablet can be more easily clicked from your inventory and takes up less space than runes for a teleport spell. Equipment choice Items will be listed in order of how much they increase general melee damage per second. In nearly all cases, optimising for offensive stats is more effective than optimising for defensive or balanced stats, especially when fighting the low-offence, high hp monsters on this list. In addition, optimising for strength is usually better than optimising for accuracy except against high-defence monsters. Head-slot items * Serpentine helm * Helm of neitiznot * Berserker helm * Obsidian helm All four of these items provide the same strength bonus of +3, so choose between them based on their other stats such as their defence or availability. Note that these strength-boosting helmets are almost always better than helmets that only provide accuracy, such as the Warrior helm, for general training. Also note that when training Slayer, a Slayer helm (or Black mask) will always provide the greatest damage increase over any of these. Cape-slot items in order of effectiveness # Infernal cape # Fire cape # Mythical cape If the player does not have access to any of these, the Obsidian cape can be used instead due to its moderate defence bonuses, however it will not increase damage. Neck-slot items in order of effectiveness # Amulet of torture # Amulet of fury # Amulet of glory # Amulet of strength # Amulet of power # Amulet of accuracy When fighting undead monsters and not using a Slayer helmet, the Salve amulet and its upgraded version the Salve amulet (e) are the best neck-slot items. Torso-slot items in order of effectiveness # Bandos chestplate, Fighter torso * # Obsidian platebody * Both of these items provide the same strength bonus, but the Bandos chestplate has much better defences. Shield-slot items in order of effectiveness # Avernic defender # Dragon defender # Rune defender # Dragonfire shield * # Adamant defender # Toktz-ket-xil ** * When fighting dragons, a Dragonfire shield is the best melee offhand item due to its ability to block dragonfire while having high strength and defence bonuses. However, if dragonfire protection and high defence are not needed, defenders are better due to their accuracy bonuses. ** As defenders require access to the Warriors' Guild and thus a combined Attack and Strength level of 130 (for example, level 65 in both), the Toktz-ket-xil should be used until that requirement is met. Legs-slot items in order of effectiveness # Bandos tassets # Obsidian platelegs Hands-slot items in order of effectiveness # Barrows gloves # Dragon gloves # Rune gloves # Regen bracelet # Adamant gloves # Granite gloves # Combat bracelet # Mithril gloves # All other Culinaromancer's gloves Feet-slot items in order of effectiveness # Primordial boots # Dragon boots # Guardian boots, Granite boots # Rune boots, Climbing boots # Adamant boots Ring-slot items in order of effectiveness # Berserker ring (i) # Berserker ring # Warrior ring, Tyrannical ring, Treasonous ring Rings should be imbued at the Nightmare Zone as soon as possible. Also note that the Warrior, Tyrannical, and Treasonous rings only benefit one attacking style each, while the Berserker ring benefits all melee combat. If the player cannot afford any of these rings, a Ring of wealth is a decent alternative to help improve rare drop table rolls and pick up coins, but it does not increase damage. Weapon choice Some general rules when choosing a weapon * In nearly all cases, choosing a weapon with an attack speed of 6 (2.4 second interval) will be the best choice for dealing the highest damage per second. Slower weapons almost always give less experience overall, even if they do more damage per hit. * Monster vulnerability may cause certain weapons to perform better than their stats suggest. For example most Dragons are weak to Stab, making the otherwise weaker Zamorakian hasta a better choice than the Abyssal whip when fighting them. Check a monster's wiki page to see its defensive bonuses and consider picking a weapon it is weak to. Training weapons in order of effectiveness *Note: All one-handed weapons in this table will have their stats displayed as if they were paired with a Dragon defender, due to two-handed weapons having the disadvantage of not being able to use one. It is much more feasible for most players to obtain a Dragon defender compared to the expensive Avernic defender which is why it is chosen for this list, however if you do have access to one use it instead. If you do not have access to a shield at all, such as if you do not want to risk an additional item in the Wilderness or you have not yet unlocked the requirements for any offhand equipment, certain fast two-handed weapons like the Saradomin sword become more worth using due to lacking the opportunity cost they usually incur. The weapons listed here with level requirements of less than 60 will not include the bonuses of a defender, as it is unlikely that someone using one of these low level weapons would have access to one due to the 130 attack+strength requirement. As noted above, players with 60 defence without access to defenders should be using the Toktz-ket-xil. Other equipment options Obsidian equipment + Berserker necklace Wearing the Obsidian platebody, Obsidian platelegs, and the Obsidian helmet gives a 10% damage and accuracy bonus to melee Obsidian weapons. Wearing the Berserker necklace also gives another 20% damage and accuracy bonus to Obsidian weapons. Combining all four of these items with the Toktz-xil-ak (Obsidian sword) can actually give faster experience rates than anything in the table above against low-defence monsters, such as those in the Nightmare Zone. However, the set has below-average defence and does not allow the use of a Slayer helmet. If the player cannot use all five items, they should not be using the Toktz-xil-ak. Void knight equipment Wearing the Void melee helm with the full Void Knight equipment set gives a 10% melee damage and accuracy bonus. This bonus accuracy makes it good against certain high-defence monsters like the Corporeal Beast. It is a good alternative for players with 42 combat stats who do not have access to high-strength gear. However, this set gives less strength than other melee equipment and has significantly lower melee and ranged defence, making it usually worse for training than high strength gear. Dharok the Wretched's equipment Wearing a full set of Dharok the Wretched's equipment gives the set effect of increasing the player's damage the lower their remaining hitpoints are. Using a Dwarven rock cake or Locator orb the player can intentionally keep their health at 1 hp while using Protection prayers to block all forms of damage. If the player has a source of prayer or damage block, such as by using Prayer potions, Absorptions (Nightmare zone only), or an altar, the player can safely use the set's effect to deal very high amounts of damage and gain fast experience. However, the set degrades after 4 hours of use and must be repaired in order to keep its stats. Guthan the Infested's equipment Wearing a full set of Guthan the Infested's equipment gives the set effect of a 25% chance to heal the player by the damage dealt. This set deals much less damage than other options on the list, but it allows players to train for long periods of time without banking to heal. Players can bring the four pieces in their inventory, train on their normal high-strength equipment, and switch to the Guthan's equipment only when their health gets low. Popular monsters for this tactic are Gargoyles, Nechryaels, and Bandits. However, the set degrades after 4 hours of use and must be repaired in order to keep its stats. Suggested training methods for best experience Levels 1 to 30 Completing the Waterfall Quest at level 1 attack and strength will instantly bring the player to level 30 in each. This quest has no requirements, making it the fastest way to train a brand new account to these levels, skipping much of the slow low-level training. However, there are several aggressive and hard-hitting monsters during the quest, so players may want to train some Defence and Hitpoints levels in order to make the quest safer. See the Waterfall Quest guide for more information on how to complete this quest. Levels 1 to 10 Levels 10 to 60 Levels 60 to 99 Suggested training methods for experience and profit hybrid It is not recommended to train melee for profit at low levels. It is usually better to train with crabs, Slayer, or the Nightmare Zone and do something else to make money for overall more efficient play. For example, killing Hobgoblins for two hours will give both less money and less experience than spinning flax for one hour and training on crabs for one hour. Low-level players looking to make money for early gear should check out the Money-making guide. Here are some easy options for training melee if you do want to kill monsters for profit and still get decent experience rates. Levels 1 to 10 Levels 10 to 20 Levels 20 to 30 Levels 30 to 60 Levels 40 to 60 Levels 60 to 70 Levels 70 to 99 Levels 80 to 99 Levels 90 to 99 Alternative training methods for good experience You may use these if the above methods are too crowded or otherwise not available. However, they are not as good as the other methods. Levels 60 to 99